


How Missy paid the Doctor back for Frozen aka the night Ten watched all of Saw

by Resa_Saso



Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Crack, F/M, Fluff, Humour, The angst is tiny tonight, enjoy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-31
Updated: 2018-12-31
Packaged: 2019-09-30 22:35:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,416
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17232473
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Resa_Saso/pseuds/Resa_Saso
Summary: The Doctor doesn't want to die, Missy doesn't want to be alone, and the Saw movies really just wanted to exist in peace.





	How Missy paid the Doctor back for Frozen aka the night Ten watched all of Saw

The Doctor had never been someone known to be frozen in fear. He was completely unfamiliar with this feeling, this creeping, lurking fear that had settled down at the corners of his hearts.

Here he sat, in his TARDIS, his life boat, his trusted four walls, floating in space, no aim, no adventure, nothing to see but the bore of the safety he had always tried to escape.

_“Your song is ending, Doctor.”_

He leaned his head back against the wall, slamming it ever so lightly. The boredom was going to kill him, if his own stupid fear wouldn’t do it first. Yes, here he’d be safe, but to lead what kind of life? He was lonely, bored and trapped in his own thoughts, running in circles, around, around and around.

But he couldn’t do it. He just couldn’t bring himself to get up and swing right back into the adventures anymore. All he could think was that he didn’t… He just didn’t want to go yet.

All of that changed in an especially lonely night, when it knocked on his TARDIS doors four times.

The Doctor didn’t even flinch.

He just looked at the door with silent horror on his face, muttering “You’ve got to be kidding me” and after merely a second of contemplating whether he was really going to do this, got up to open it.

He was the Doctor, and he had enough. He had enough of waiting, he had enough of being scared. For a minute there, he had honestly forgotten, hadn’t he? Had forgotten what to do against crippling fear – Running straight towards it with a grin on his face.

“Oh,” he said when he opened the door, his face warped into a confused grimace. “Oh. Hadn’t exactly expected death by Mary Poppins, but I suppose I can’t be picky.”

Mary Poppins gave him an icy look, then nonchalantly entered his TARDIS without a word of permission, sauntering through his console room with a little sigh.

“I forgot it looked like this. Really, it’s a mess. Can’t you at least install a proper sofa instead of that awful jump seat?”

Had Mary Poppins been based on a real person? The Doctor frowned. He sometimes mixed these things up, yes, but he was fairly sure she had been merely fictional. All the flying with the umbrella… He let his eyes wander down the woman in front of him, who now stood in the middle of his control room like she lived here, both arms leaning on a purple umbrella.

Well.

“Sorry. Can that umbrella fly?”

“Why don’t you jump and find out while I redecorate?”

“Into space? Yeah, I, I’m not sure that’d be such a good idea.”

“A shame.”

Alright, so Mary Poppins really _did_ want him dead. Today was going to make quite a big, weird entry in his memoirs.

But to be fair, that applied to most of his days.

“Sorry. Uhm. May I ask, and I know, it’s a very silly question, but I do them all the time – What are you doing in my TARDIS and how did you find it, since it’s currently randomly floating through space? And, while we’re at it and I wouldn’t embarrass both of us with even more questions later – Uhm. Who are you?”

“Missy.”

“Missy?”

“Missy.”

“… Missy.”

“That’s me.”

“As for my other questions?”

Missy sighed. “You know, honey, you’ve been floating on this spot for days now, I thought you might need a bit of company.”

The Doctor wasn’t quite sure how to react to that. After a few seconds of silence, he settled for staring at her with a confused look and half-opened mouth.

Missy chuckled.

“Look at you, Bambi. Frozen in fear, that’s not like you at _all_. I simply _had_ to come and look after you, didn’t I? I really had no other choice. Do remember that. For the future.

He was rarely ever lost for words. He remembered Donna crashing into his TARDIS in a wedding dress. He remembered the Titanic crashing into his TARDIS (without the wedding dress). But this, this was, this was…

“Did you just call me _Bambi_?”

“It’s very fitting, is it not?”

“Bambi? Like the… the doe? From Disney?”

Missy tutted.

“My _deer_ Doctor. You can’t possibly tell me you have never seen Bambi? It’s the perfect embodiment of your person, with the big brown sad eyes and everything.”

“You just called me a ‘deer’, didn’t you?”

When Missy simply grinned, the Doctor shrugged his shoulders with a smug little smirk.

“Well, you know how they say. ‘Rather be a deer than a mouse deer.’”

Missy stared at him for solid three seconds, then stated with a single raised eyebrow.

“That was pathetic.”

“I thought it was quite…”

“Mouse deer and Master don’t sound anything alike, you’re delusional.”

“But, I…”

“No one even _knows_ this animal, I bet most people had to look it up. It’s not funny when people have to look up the joke.”

“Okay,” the Doctor exclaimed and threw his hands in the air with a sigh. “Okay, I give up, you’re the pun Master. Now, are you’re going to tell me what, in the name of Rassilon, you’re doing here?”

But before Missy could give him any sort of an answer, he grinned charmingly, while wiggling his eyebrows at her. “Huh? Pun Master? Got it? Pun _Master_.”

Missy, utterly unimpressed, raised a single eyebrow and mouthed the word “ _pathetic_ ” back at him.

“I’m good with puns!” the Doctor insisted with a slightly indignant voice. “Always have been.”

“That’s lovely, dear, why don’t you show off your talent a bit?”

The Doctor stared at her wordlessly, then finally admitted defeat with a little sigh, his hand running through his hair nervously.

“Well. I suppose I’m not up to my game right now, it’s all a bit…” He waved his hands around helplessly, trying to find the words to explains what it has been. With the Master gone, Martha gone, Donna at home, not remembering him, Rose gone again, Jack gone, my, the list just went on and on, didn’t it?

“I am a bit rusty,” he added lamely, feeling like he should conclude some way.

The look in Missy’s eyes frightened him, though. This was a different fright than what the Ood’s prophecy had done to him, this wasn’t death breathing in his neck. This was the sort of fright that held a mirror to his face, showed him what was happening to him and he didn’t like that look one bit.

“Don’t look at me like that,” he snapped, and Missy raised an eyebrow in surprise.

“How am I looking?”

“Like you’re feeling sorry for me.”

“And what’s wrong with that? Quite frankly, you’re in a rather sorry state.”

The Doctor frowned at her dismissively. “So? That doesn’t mean you’re sorry for me! You’re a sadist. You threw a party when my first wife died.”

Missy was chewing her lower lip with a look of sheepish mischief on her face. “Yeah. Really didn’t like her a lot.”

“You laughed at me for three weeks when I got suspended from Academy.”

“Well, that was funny! Considering _I_ was the one who really brought in the laser slu…”

“You laughed me in the face while I held you and wept over your dying body!”

“Fine, I admit that might have been a bit of sadism.”

The Doctor began tugging at his hair again. “How are you alive, Master? Missy?” He frowned. “Where’s _that_ coming from anyway?”

“It’s short for Mistress,” Missy explained in a tone that made it quite clear the Doctor must be genuinely lacking massive amounts of intellect for not getting the connection.

And he just stared, waiting for the second part of the answer, until he realized there wasn’t going to be one.

“Sorry, do you want me to repeat the question?” he finally asked with resignation in his voice.

Missy smiled (urgh) compassionately.

“Look, dear, don’t ask me questions I’m not allowed to answer, you know, keeping the timelines intact, protecting the structure of the universe, blah blah, and I won’t avoid, it’s very easy.”

“Don’t you think you owe me a bit of endangering the universe? You kept me in a cage for heaven’s sake!”

“Oh yes, that was fun, wasn’t it?”

“That was not – “

But to his own surprise, the Doctor had to laugh before he could properly finish the sentence. He shook his head in silent amusement, then looked into her eyes with intent, his voice breaking as he spoke.

“I can’t believe you’re here.”

Missy shrugged nonchalantly.

“Take that disbelief and double it, because I’m fairly sure your future self will tell me the same thing when I return to _my_ cage.”

The Doctor blinked in surprise. “I suppose that belongs to the sort of things you can’t tell me anything about?”

A predatory grin appeared on Missy’s face and suddenly it was incredibly easy to find his old friend in the fine features of her face. It’s funny, how strange and new every regeneration of the Master felt, until they went and wore that one expression that never changed, no body which body presented it.

“Oh, I think I’m going to have to wipe your memory anyway, you figured out who I was _far_ too quickly.”

“Shouldn’t ‘dear Doctor’ me if you don’t want me to,” the Doctor muttered grumpily, making Missy grin.

“I know, but I just couldn’t let this opportunity to be the _pun Master_ pass.”

“Now you’re just taking pity on me,” the Doctor laughed. “So, if you’re wiping my memory anyway… I have some questions. About _your_ cage.”

But Missy was barely paying any attention to him and instead had started turning around herself in his TARDIS, seemingly looking for something.

He frowned.

“Can I help you?”

“Where’s your TV?”

“My… my what?”

“TV? You know? That thing with which you’re watching all the silly human programs you hacked into? Ohhh, don’t give me that look,” she added with a wink as she turned back to him. “I know you do love your Disney movies. Apparently not Bambi, though.”

“Please,” the Doctor uttered with a completely puzzled expression. “Please tell me you’re not here to watch Disney movies with me.”

“Hell no,” Missy tutted and pulled out a DVD from… - oh, by Rassilon, from _where_? “I’ve already burnt through all the Disney movies you gave me in the first week. This is Saw 3.”

The Doctor couldn’t help but stare. There were no words in the universe to express his utter disbelief.

“Listen,” Missy added, realizing she had to offer him a little bit more of explanation. “You need some company to escape this state you’re in and come running when I call you – oh yes dear, that’s going to happen – and believe me, I need some, too. So, let’s make this a win/win situation – just this once, you know I win with all the rest – and watch some really bloody movies together?”

“People die in this movie?” the Doctor wanted to know with a little smirk.

“Naturally.”

“Still are the same person, then. A relief.” He seemed to have gotten his composure back, because he opened the door that led to the aisles of his TARDIS and made a jokingly deep bow. “In you go, then.”

He followed her quietly as she entered, and she threw a look back with a winning smile on her face.

“Where to?”

“Oh, the TV is in my bedroom, next door on the… Yes, exactly and then… - You know the way to my bedroom. Of course you do.”

Missy gave him a playful wink over her shoulder, while still taking all the right doors. The Doctor watched her in amazement. It was like the window to a future he didn’t understand, he couldn’t really reach, as it had felt completely impossible to him and had yet desperately craved.

When they reached his bedroom, Missy wasted no time, threw the DVD into his arms and draped herself on his bed like a content kitten.

The Doctor watched her for a few moments, stunned, until she patted on the spot next to her and he hurried to put in the DVD and lie down beside her.

It was… weird. Weird because of everything that had happened between them, things she had apparently moved past, but he wasn’t exactly there, yet.

It was also not weird at all, except for the rising sense of familiarity that seemed to overwhelm him. It was okay, but weirdly so. It was something they had done a million times as children, shared a bed, held each other until the suns rose and a new day dawned.

It had been so, so long, but when Missy (in the middle of a particularly bloody scene, as was her way) snuggled up to him, her chin resting on his shoulder like it was its natural habitat, he still instinctively wrapped his arms around her waist like he had done so many hundreds of years ago.

Actually, if the Doctor remembered correctly, they had always done this, when… Oh.

“Missy,” he muttered softly, in case she actually wanted to hear any of that very inspiring dialogue (“Uuuuurgh! HELP! HEEEEELP!”). “Are you going to tell me why you’re sad?”

She lifted her head for a single second, looking at his face with a thoughtful expression, then laid it back on his chest.

“I’m not sad anymore.”

“Yes, you are. Why?”

There was a trace of a tortured expression hushing over Missy’s face for a few seconds and the Doctor caught it only because he was looking at her carefully. Then the light shifted, and her face was back to the cool, composed version she had shown before.

Then her blue eyes wandered up to his face.

“Have you loved me, Theta?”

The question knocked the air out of his lungs. For a few seconds, he was utterly able to process anything, staring at her in disbelief.

“I… I did. Of course I did.”

“But did you?”, she replied softly, suddenly looking so sad it broke both his hearts. He sat up, but before she had even processed that she was sliding off his chest, he had put her face into both his hands, looking into her eyes deeply.

“I have never loved anyone, anywhere, like I loved you, Kosch. Never. Can you believe that?”

“’s hard to.”

“I know it is. I’m sorry.”

“He doesn’t even… you don’t even… He says he’s taking care of me, you know, and he says I have to… to feel things to get… better. And I feel things, I feel them all the time, it’s… overwhelming. And hurting. And it won’t stop, Doctor, it won’t ever stop, no matter what I try, what I do, what I think. It’s just always there, sometimes it’s easier to handle, sometimes it isn’t, but it’s always there.

And you aren’t.”

To the Doctor’s great shock, there were tears in her eyes, and he didn’t know what to do. He followed the first instinct he got, an old, buried instinct that he thought had died together with all his childhood friend. He pulled her to his chest, gently swinging her like a crying baby, holding her with shaking arms.

“I hope you know,” he said after a few silent minutes she had spent weeping in his arms, “that I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“You won’t look at me,” she replied quietly. “You won’t hold me. Won’t touch me. Won’t give me… any word of… I can’t do it alone, Doctor.”

“You are not alone,” he gave back determinedly. “You. Are. Not. Alone. Never. Look, I don’t know what my future has in store for me – and frankly, I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but nothing you’re saying makes any sense to me, but- Just tell me, okay? Future me, that is, not this me, mind you, don’t tell me anything, it’s working so well! But tell him like you told me. I’m sure, no matter what happened, he wouldn’t want to leave you alone. Ever. Scout’s honour.”

He stupidly held up two crossed fingers in front of her face, making her giggle between her tears.

Then she sighed.

“It’s far easier with you. You’re much more touchy-feely.”

“Well… That’s not difficult. I’ve been told I’m the touchy-feeliest of them all.”

“Pretty much, yes. It must’ve come with the Bambi eyes.”

“Must’ve.” He grinned. “Feeling better?”

“No. You must hold me through this movie. For sure. And maybe the next movies of the franchise.”

“Doesn’t Saw have like eight movies?”

“Yes.”

“Okay, I’ve made my peace with you not telling me anything, but this. Please tell me this. Where did you put all these DVDs?”

“Oh _honey_. That’s just no question to ask a lady!”

“But… But… Bu… _Missy_.”

She laughed, snuggling up closer to him, her head buried in his chest so deeply he wondered if she could even see the TV. Not that it mattered. She had seen enough blood in her life to just imagine it next to the nice gurgling sound of dying people.

Urgh. He hated splatter movies. (Which, obviously, she had known, considered and then made her pick exactly because of that.)

“It’s gonna be okay,” she said after a long silence and three movies later. “You should really know that. It’s going to be okay. Sometimes you have to let change in to have things get better, you know? If I learned anything in this body, it’s that.”

The Doctor smiled at her, a bit shakily, but still a smile.

“I’m not scared of changing. It’s just… Okay. Fine. I am.”

“I’ll be there. It takes me a while, but I will. Just see it as another step into my direction, will you? I mean, you did say that you love me.”

“Loved. Past tense.”

“And since you love me so very much…”

“Love _d_.”

“It really shouldn’t be such a big deal. Dying, after all, is something I’ve done various of times and you… You’re going to be okay.”

The Doctor nodded with a little smile. There was no fooling the Master, not for him, not even once. Maybe once. Actually, he’s done it quite a lot of times. Not this time, though.

“It doesn’t feel so okay.”

But to his surprise, Missy just shrugged. “Of course it doesn’t, dying never does. But you know… You can’t run away from it, that’s just the thing with death. And believe me, I’ve tried. It always catches up to you. The question is only… will you float into space, watching eight horrible movies, or will you see the universe, run through the stars, actually _live_ until it’s your time?”

“So you agree they’re horrible?”

“Oh, absolutely horrendous. But it’s worth it to see your disgusted face whenever someone loses an unhealthy amount of blood.”

“I take it back, I really hate you.”

“No, you don’t,” she grinned, and for some reason the Doctor neither understood nor questioned, she kissed the tip of his nose.

“Hey Missy,” he muttered, as she curled up in his arms contently.

“Hm?”

“Thank you.”

“Oh honey. Don’t thank me too soon. I’m kind of… responsible.”

But the Doctor just laughed.

“Well, I figured _that_ out quite a while ago.”

 

That night, when the Doctor fell asleep next to her and the room was filled with nothing but soft snoring noises, Missy cautiously crawled out of his embrace and kneeled on the bed, looking down at his peaceful face with regrets.

She didn’t want to leave and even more so, she didn’t want to make him forget. She wanted him to be happy and carefree for as long as he could manage. But she knew it was too dangerous to leave him with his memories.

But, she thought, as she slowly laid her hands at his temples and carefully sorted out the memories of tonight. She had a vault to be in, a change to go through, a friend to regain, and none of that would work with him remembering this night they had together.

But she left him a trace of her own love and hope deep inside his mind, a tiny little bit of the feelings he had given her back today, hoping that it would help him go forward and maybe one day grow to something so powerful, none of them would ever have to ask again what both used to know.

 

 


End file.
